Law of the streets is a death sentence

Weary-eyed, Laura and Willie Dent approached their 15-year-old grandson's coffin, their grief worn raw by the senseless chain of events that led to his death.

The grandfather let out a heavy sigh.

"All my dreams," he said, "have been swept away."

Joshua Dent was buried Tuesday. His best friend Antonio Washington, 17, was buried Wednesday. Like many of Chicago's homicide victims, both were killed over a meaningless insult.

Experts say their deaths show the extent to which lethal force has come to be viewed as an appropriate response to even minor affronts, a new and unsettling norm fueled by anger, economic inequity and a general acceptance of violence in parts of today's society.

"It's nothing more than behavior, but now it's normal behavior," said Dr. Gary Slutkin, head of the Chicago Project for Violence Prevention. "Right now, it's normal to shoot."

Such homicides don't happen because of drug dealers warring over street corners or decades-old gang rivalries, the experts say. They are the deadly endpoint of petty disputes, of quarrels, fistfights and confrontations that somehow escalate into shootings, stabbings and beatings.

Dent and Washington were hanging out Aug. 31 in Englewood when a friend of theirs got into a fight with another man over comments made about a girl. The two teenagers stayed out of the scuffle.

When the other man stormed off, Washington, known as "Rusty" for his dry skin, and Dent, bulky, 6-foot-1 and about to start 9th grade, stayed around their friend's house.

Police said the man returned a few hours later with a gun and opened fire, seemingly at random, striking Dent, Washington and a third man standing on the sidewalk.

Dent died shortly after 6 p.m. Washington died two hours later.

"I don't know why," said Laura Dent, 74. "I did the best I could."

Though both teens were members of the Gangster Disciples, Chicago police said gang affiliation played no part in their deaths. No one has been charged.

Homicides stemming from altercations account for one in five slayings this year through August, according to police statistics.

"These are the ones that are the hardest to prevent," police spokesman David Bayless said. "They're largely driven by an altercation where emotion gets hyped up."

Emotions were high earlier this year when Frank Hernandez Jr. was shot and killed outside Wrigley Field after a Cubs game.

Hernandez, 26, was shot on Clark Street near Addison Street on May 7 after a quarrel with the driver of a sport-utility vehicle led to a fistfight, police said. Rodrigo Caballero, 22, jumped out of the SUV's passenger seat and shot into the melee, police said, striking Hernandez in the chest. Caballero was arrested and charged with first-degree murder.

"Because there's a gun available, it's a homicide," Bayless said. "Without a gun it's, at worst, a traffic altercation that turned into a fistfight."

Much of the blame for these slayings lies in fatalistic attitudes cultivated in the city's most impoverished and drug-ridden areas, experts say.

In blighted neighborhoods on the South and West Sides, poverty and unemployment are high, social and economic resources are few and aggression is considered the only means of survival.

"If you look at a map of Chicago, you can find the seven communities in Chicago that make up 70 percent of the homicides," said Carl Bell, president of the Community Mental Health Council and professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago. "And those six or seven don't have any social fabric."

And walking away from a conflict is a sign of weakness, said Rev. Robin Hood, lead organizer for the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now. Those living within the tumultuous atmosphere of gangbangers and drug dealers don't dare earn such a reputation.

"There's a certain pride or emotion that if you back away from a situation, you're weak," Hood said. "You've got to take care of your business. The law of the streets is kill or be killed."

Some who live in these environments say a sense of hopelessness can turn into hostility.

Marlon Brumfield, 27, a lifelong Englewood resident, said living in poverty breeds jealousy and anger toward anyone who's better off, often causing people to act without thinking.

"You're sitting up here, broke, looking at the next guy who looks like he got some money," Brumfield said. "If you're getting good money, you better have a vest on."

Brumfield and his friend, Eddie Harmon, also said alcohol and drugs can bring simmering feelings of anger to the point where violence erupts.

"You get some liquor, some weed--that'll have you ready to fight anything," said Harmon, 24.

When stress and anxiety levels are dialed up, people are more likely to lash out, said Slutkin, an epidemiologist and physician who runs CeaseFire, a violence outreach and prevention program in Chicago.

"It's the level of anxiety that people live in that causes them to quickly lose it," Slutkin said. "What it adds up to is people quickly going from anxiety to anger to acting out."

CeaseFire and its outreach workers have been fanning out across the city for several years, trying to change the way people think about violence and tear down notions that killing is socially acceptable.

That's what authorities said was at work when Chaviz Wofford allegedly shot Brandon Spivey in the back the night of Aug. 15.

Spivey, 16, who was about to start 10th grade at Calumet High School, died at the scene. Wofford, 26, was charged with first-degree murder.

Wofford, authorities said, believed Spivey had smoked marijuana in his car earlier in the day.

"Brandon wasn't the only one that smoked weed on the block," said Marquita Brown, 19, Spivey's sister and mother to Wofford's 5-month-old son, Jalen. "Everybody said it was a stupid reason to kill someone."